The KDE team has released KDE 4.3. This release comes packed with improvements and bug fixes - in fact, over the last six months, 10000 bugs were squashed, 2000 feature requests handled, and 63000 changes were checked in by 700 people. We've already talked about this new release in quite some detail last week, but let's take a look at the most important new features anyway.

Maybe they just forgot to enable it, but I've seen a video of the new KDE4.3, and the window decorations (for windows, not plasma applets) still look as awful as they did before. Where's the new theme?

There is no new theme, only Plasma got one. KWin decoration got the ability to have real transparency in theme, old timer like Crystal and new theme should so appear and use that feature. The current one is not really nice, your right.

Maybe they just forgot to enable it, but I've seen a video of the new KDE4.3, and the window decorations (for windows, not plasma applets) still look as awful as they did before. Where's the new theme?

You have misunderstood. "Window manager components follow plasma theming", it doesn't mean window borders are themed in Plasma style. That'd be crap anyways. It is the compositing effects' parts that change with the current Plasma theme. But it seems to be very small changes. I've only noticed the text labels in Cover Flow and the Cube.

I myself am not a fan of the layout customizing tool that's currently in use at least in Amarok and Kopete (since KDE 4.3). It's very complicated and uncomfortable to use.

Maybe they just forgot to enable it, but I've seen a video of the new KDE4.3, and the window decorations (for windows, not plasma applets) still look as awful as they did before. Where's the new theme?

Let me correct that for you - ... window decorations (for windows, not plasma applets) still look beautiful as they did before.

You see, it's a matter of taste. You're talking about the oxygen widget style + window decorations, both of which I found very polished. The windeco is configurable (see how I rearranged the buttons), and it blends in smoothly with the color of the window backgroun (see unfocused windows) The widgets are finally the right size (I saw someone claiming they are oversized - wtf? just take a look, how are those buttons/drop-down menus/toolbar buttons oversized?) and clear, crisp, and readable: http://picasaweb.google.com/CsabaMolnar/Computer#536639413732211094...

You can also adjust the contrast in Appearance/Colors to make it sharper if you wish.

Saying they look awful is nothing but arrogance - you can say you don't like them, I'm fine with that, but at least you can allow for the possibility that quite a few of us like it. In fact, this is the first style I don't really feel the need to change immediately, the first time that the defaults look great. Still, if you prefer GNOME style oversized widgets plastic is available along with a number of other styles (probably sculpture being the next best thing to oxygen).

You see, it's a matter of taste. You're talking about the oxygen widget style + window decorations, both of which I found very polished. The windeco is configurable (see how I rearranged the buttons), and it blends in smoothly with the color of the window backgroun (see unfocused windows) The widgets are finally the right size (I saw someone claiming they are oversized - wtf? just take a look, how are those buttons/drop-down menus/toolbar buttons oversized?) and clear, crisp, and readable: http://picasaweb.google.com/CsabaMolnar/Computer#536639413732211094...

Of course, this is a matter of taste. That said, a glance at your screenshot makes me feel like I was staring at rock slabs. Everything is so... gray. A bit depressing. I know that other DE are using grays (OS X, GNOME), but they use color gradients, which is more appealing to the eyes.

That said, the screenshots accompanying the press release look good.

Anyway, my pet peeve against KDE has always been the lack of general polish. That's a bit hard to describe... When I use it, I just feel that everything was patched together instead of being designed. I believe that's how many people feel. I know that KDE doesn't benefit from the same financial/workforce support as GNOME, I am persuaded that KDE framework is definitely superior to the one found in GNOME, I love Qt... yet it doesn't matter much when you just want to use your system.

On another note, when can we expect KDE 4.3 binaries for Debian? I want to give it a try. Unfortunately, Kubuntu is quite buggy, while Fedora's policies are getting in my way (even RPM Fusion don't have all packages I'd like).